Speech.

Speech is an act posterior to will, itself posterior to love; this again posterior to judgment, posterior in its turn to memory, which, finally, is posterior to the impression.

Every impression, to become a sensation, must first be perceived by the intelligence, and thus we may say of the sensation that it is a definite impression.  But, to be definite, it must pass into the domain of memory and there solicit the reappearance of its congeners with which it may identify itself.  It is in this apparatus and surrounded by this throng of homogeneous impressions which gather round it, as if by magic, or rather which it draws about it as the magnet draws the iron, it is, I say, in this complex state that it appears before the intelligence to receive from the latter a fitting name.  For the intelligence could not give it a name if the homogeneous impressions in which it has, so to speak, arrayed itself, did not serve to point it out.

Now, by this distinction, established by the double operation of the memory and the intelligence, a movement takes place in the soul, of attraction, if the intelligence approve; or of repulsion, if it disapprove.  This movement is called the will.  The will, therefore, becomes the active principle in virtue of which speech is expressed; thus speech is the express agent of the will.  It is speech, in fact, which, under the incubation of this mysterious power, rules, groups and moves bodies with the aid of memory.

Inflection is the life of speech; the mind lies in the articulative values, in the distribution of these articulations and their progressions.  The soul of speech is in gesture.

Breathing.

Breathing, according to its form of production, is:  (1) Costal or combined; (2) diaphragmatic; (3) costo-diaphragmatic.

Breathing is a triple act based upon three phenomena:  Inspiration, suspension, expiration.  From the successive predominance of each of these three phenomena, or from their equal balance, result eighty-one respiratory acts, which may be reduced to three terms:  The breathing is normal, spasmodic, or sibilant.

There are three questions to be considered in regard to breathing: 

1.  How should it, the breath, be produced to gain the greatest development for the voice?

2.  What place should it occupy in speech?

3.  What aspect does it assume under the influence of the passions?

In other words, three characters may be attributed to respiration:  Vocal, logical, pathetic or passional.

Vocal Respiration.

The lungs constantly contain a quantity of air, which is the source of life and with which we cannot dispense without inconvenience to health and to the voice.  The quantity of air requisite for the renewing of the blood, and which is called the breath of life, amounts to a third of what the lungs are capable of receiving.  In order to sing, therefore, it must be increased by two-thirds, and it is this borrowed breath only which should be given out in singing.  When the lungs are thus filled with air, the sound is produced by escapement.  From this it receives greater force, and its production, far from being a fatigue, becomes a relief.